Roots of agitation

Are protests the new fad? The lawyers’ movement wanting top judiciary’s restoration; doctors and mid- to low-level government servants on strike for pay raise; and civil society protesting against general socio-economic injustice. There is no debate on the point that the brains behind recent protests in the heart of Islamabad wanted to give vent to the public’s pent-up agitation concerning deep injustices.
The roots of the unrest may lie in the deep-rooted economic disparity and government’s service delivery and security failures. The country has faced the terror of numerous suicidal attacks, and the street crime in urban centers is unprecedented. This implies that the establishment’s security control apparatus has failed to provide adequate security to common man despite high budgetary spending.
There is a serious breakdown in basic amenities to be provided or facilitated by the government. The long hours of electricity load-shedding and limited availability of gas to households, businesses and transportation have increased the stress level amongst masses.
On top of it, a few economic indicators are clearly exhibiting the misery of masses, especially for the urban youth. BR Research has dug up some shocking indicators.
The core of the rising economic burden on an average household is owed to exceptionally high inflationary era. The average yearly inflation historically remained in the band of 5-7 percent except for the last few years. The country could never really come out of the economic crises that badly hit the country in 2008.
Consumer price index has more than doubled in the last seven years: about 112% increase between FY08 and FY14, with average annual inflation at 12%. The more worrisome fact is that food prices have soared by an even bigger margin. On real terms (adjusting for CPI), the food sub-index increased by 33 percent while in absolute terms, the prices hike is 2.5 times in the last seven years.
Further analysis shows that people belonging to low-income group and urban dwellers are the hardest hit. BR Research compared the income of household in various incomes quintiles from the data published in the household integrated economic survey (HIES) between FY08 and FY12. A simple analysis demonstrated that urban low-income households have not even been able to beat the inflation.
The data is segregated in five quintiles based on number of households and the real income (adjusted for inflation) in the lowest two quintiles has decreased by eight and six percent, respectively. On the other hand, it’s increased by 35 and 30 percent in the top two quintiles.
The rising income disparity is never welcomed by the underprivileged groups and the resentment is pronounced by fall in the purchasing power in the 40 percent of urban inhabitants. In case of rural population, the overall income across the households stagnated in real terms. No wonder low-income people need a platform to register their protests irrespective of their political leaning.
This is a no-brainer to logically deduce from the facts presented above that poverty may well be on the rise. Although official poverty numbers are not available, an SPDC study narrates that in FY11 38 percent or 71 million people were poor as against 30 percent poor people in FY05. The estimates are based on applying calorific approach, which computes the amount in rupees required to have minimum required calories.
More recently, the multidimensional poverty approach has been adopted by researchers in which various dimensions of health, education and basic living standards are identified and measured to arrive at the poverty level. And according to this methodology, half of the population is poor in Pakistan.
These economic realities imply that protests, while overtly about electoral reforms or change of “system”, are deep down about the social and economic injustices.
Yet more middle-class and educated youth are seen on the protest sites than those who are really marginalized. One reason to explain is that poor people are too busy in earning two meals a day and they don’t have energy or time to even protest against their misery. On the other hand, educated youth have spark, energy and ambition. Besides, during the night, protest sites give the image of a carnival. But, there also are some unemployed youth seen on the site.
Data suggest that there are 7.4 million young boys and men in age of 15-34 in Pakistan who are not participating in the labour force and only 4.1 million are enrolled in high school, colleges and universities, while the rest are idle. They want and need to work but system is not providing them with adequate opportunities to do so. That’s a serious issue, one of the main causes of street crime in the country.
According to Dr. Hafeez Pasha, the official unemployment rate for educated people (matriculation and above) is higher (6.8%) than that of uneducated people (5.4%) while the eight percent of educated group are under-employed. These are somber facts and exhibit the fragility in Pakistan’s socio-economic fabric. Better take the recent protests-–arguably underwhelming in numbers-–as a warning sign and do something about the disparities.